Build advice for Quadro 580 card running cad

treukaufAug 25, 2010, 2:47 PM

I'm starting my first computer build and could use some advice from you guys... I'm a mech engineer trying to build a computer to run solidworks..... The only part I am certain on is the quadro FX580 card.(not doing that huge of assemblies maybe 100 or so parts). I would be extremely thankful for a system build recipe... budget is low 600 ish...I.have a friend trying to convince me to run the intel i5 or i7 chips not sure why they are better than amd... I just want some bang for the buck and a lot of ram... I do run cosmos once in a while.

I would love some newegg links to the following parts ( its hard when there are so many options)

You've provided most of the info requested, but it wouldn't hurt to edit your post to provide the info requested in the How to Ask for New Build Advice thread.

Generally, the reason to go with an i7 is for hyperthreading. At your budget however, I'd suggest sticking with AMD, as it's difficult to get a quality i7 build at less than $1000 or so. In theory, you could get an AMD 1055T hex-core, which could perform better than an i7 when overclocked, though I don't know if that will fit in your budget, as the 1055T is $200 for the processor alone. (Though that's better than Intel's i7s which start just shy of $300.)

Thanks for that link...I will not be overclocking and $600 ish includes the graphics card and I'm ordering the card tonight... nothing fancy, just something that works reliably... any advantage of i5 over amd with cad programs? Thanks

Assuming it's well-threaded, no. A quad-core i5 will overclock 1-2 cores for lightly/poorly-threaded applications, which can help vs. AMD in some games.

I think that the real problem you're going to run into is that $400 (after the GPU) is a pretty slim budget for a workstation, as 4 GB of RAM is likely to be $90-100, a motherboard is likely to be between $75-100 (higher for Intel than AMD usually), then you still need the processor, PSU, case, and any peripherals.

Not trying to talk you out of it, just attempting to be realistic. I imagine that at some point, batuchka (master of the low budget builds) will read this thread and come up with some amazing deals.

Out of time for the moment, I'll see if I can come up with something if I get the chance a little later.